He teazes me with lips that won't keep steady, and says I wished to know if my hat were straight.
"Dear goose," I protest, "it was something to do with the black chicken my wheel caught against in my headlong flight down the hill. I tried to dodge it—it was such a nice, wee black chicken, but it dodged too, and—I couldn't help it." And the tears tremble in my eyes—just from weakness. "I think I wanted you to go back up the hill and help it, for we were both in a very sorry plight."
And Dimbie, to my surprise, turns away to the window and says we shall have rain. If it had rained every time Dimbie has predicted it during my illness we should have been obliged to take refuge in an ark and float about the surface of the waters.
I am very cheerful now. I am getting better. What joy, what hope those words contain for those who have been sick and sorry. I wiped away the last tear this morning when mother went. Peter's letters had become so tiresome that I told her she had better go. And as I threw a kiss to the back of her pretty bonnet as she disappeared through the gate the tear was for her and not for myself.
"I would like to cut Peter for life, and I would but for your sake, poor dear little mother," I murmured savagely. And nurse, who entered the room at that moment, said, "You've moved."
"Yes," I replied, a little guiltily; "but as the pain has almost gone, I thought it could not do any harm just to sit up for a moment and watch mother go."
"You've sat up?" she cried in dismay.
"Yes." I snuggled my head down on the pillow. "I think I'll have a little sleep now, nurse."
"I shall tell Dr. Renton and Mr. Westover." Her voice was relentless.
"If you do I shall sit up again, and refuse to take my beef-tea," I asseverated. "Besides, it is sneaky to tell tales."